OS X Lion: Macs are no longer beginner-friendly

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Now that OS X Lion has been out for a couple of days, complaints are mounting from users about how some of their favorite functions have changed or that adapting to “natural scrolling” is difficult due to years of muscle memory. One thing people aren’t talking about, however, is the effect that Lion’s changes will have on new users — who nearly always switch from Windows machines.

When not-so-tech-savvy people have asked my opinion in the past about whether they (or their parents, sister, etc.) should get a Mac, what I’ve always said to them was this: One thing that makes Macs so great is that they’re simple enough for your grandma to learn how to use, but they’ve also got all the features and capabilities to make the most experienced power user feel right at home.

That doesn’t feel true with Lion, not by a long shot. Don’t get me wrong, I quite like Lion now that certain things have had time to sink in — like the Doctor Manhattan-style obliteration and reconstruction of my beloved Spaces. But it dawned on me that while it took a swift 20 minutes or so to acclimate to these changes, others wouldn’t be so fortunate. What made me realize this was my parents.

Just as I was about to inform them that there was a shiny, cheap new upgrade for their four-month-old iMac, the realization came that they would be lost within OS X Lion. They switched from Windows XP earlier this year, and it’s taken them this long to learn how to quit an app, as opposed to simply closing its windows. They don’t have Expose or Spaces active on their computer. They don’t know what Dashboard is, because they’ve never ventured to the topmost portion of their keyboard to use it. They get along just fine with a bare, minimal Snow Leopard experience.

That’s because Snow Leopard is clean, fast, simple, and well-organized. Those are important things when the person using it doesn’t have the easiest time adjusting to changes in technology.

Lion’s forced complexity would probably cause them to not only get frustrated and upset, but to regret their purchase to begin with — because that’s how my parents’ generation thinks when it comes to computers. Now, I used my own family as an example, but I know from experience that there are plenty of other new-to-Mac users out there just like them.

As another example, let’s say someone who’s never used Expose or Spaces accidentally activates Lion’s new full-screen feature in Safari. Apps that go full-screen create a new Space to live in, and, obviously, they fill the entire screen. I don’t know about your parents, but the phrase “how do I get out of this” rings in my head just thinking about it. So does the needlessly lengthy phone call that would follow.

OS X is not iOS — Yet

Then there are the gestures. It used to be that desktop computers (in this case, iMacs) were the norm, and laptops were for mobile busy-bodies. Now everyone uses laptops as though they were desktops, and they buy iPads to be “more mobile.” There’s a problem for these users, because Lion’s gesture suite is almost as confusing as learning a limited vocabulary in American Sign Language. As counterintuitive as it may be, Apple’s decided to allow specific gestures to do very different things depending on what the user happens to be doing at the time. They’re not intuitive at all, and can even start feeling arbitrary.

Worse than the simple inconsistencies, some gestures just don’t make any sense. Take Launchpad, which is easily the most “iOS-like” feature in Lion because it looks just like the app screens on an iPhone or iPad. When you try to swipe through pages of apps with one finger (everyone does), you quickly find that it just won’t work. That takes two fingers. But back on your desktop, it takes a three-finger swipe to switch desktops. Use another app, and the same gesture could mean something completely different.

Mission Control will line up your many desktops (née Spaces) at the top of the screen, but unless you dive into system preferences to change it, they’ll be thrown out of order on a nearly constant basis. There’s also a system-wide autocomplete in place, which will “fix” your spelling and word choice for you without any intervention on your side of things. It may be lovely to have on the tiny touchscreen of the iPhone, but when you’ve got a full keyboard it’s not exactly welcome assistance.

It’s easy for people to say that Lion is the melding of iOS and OS X. It’s a simple conclusion to jump to because everyone’s already jumped to it — but the similarities are only skin deep. Just because it looks a bit like iOS doesn’t mean that it acts the same way, and that can lead to confusion when someone who’s grown used to the absolute simplicity of an iPad installs Lion, only to find that things have been made needlessly complex.

At this point, it’s obvious that Apple wants to market desktop and laptop Macs with the same futuristic post-PC touch appeal that its iOS devices have. The only problem is that desktop and laptop macs aren’t touchscreen devices.

Universally Confusing

New users and non-techies aren’t the only groups negatively affected by Lion’s changes, either. Seasoned Apple users have spent the last two days filling the internet with blog posts and Twitter updates noting their frustrations. Whether it’s the gestures, scrolling, full-screen apps, Mission Control, Versions, or Resume — people are having more than their fair share of trouble adjusting.

The old way, the Snow Leopard way, was that advanced features were purely optional. If you wanted multiple desktops, you activated Spaces. If you wanted to put the UI to work for multi-tasking, you used Expose. It was great for people who wanted more from their Macs, and it worked out perfectly for newer users who needed to ease into it all — basically, it just worked. Didn’t that used to be a Mac catch-phrase? I don’t think it will be any longer.

Tagged In

I’m glad to see that Apple isn’t immune to the Change for Change sake issue. This reminds me of a critical change that MS made to a Windows keyboard shortcut that had been in place since Win95 was released. Winkey+u for the shutdown menu that was reassigned under Win7 to the Ease of Access Tools. Keep in mind that this keyboard shortcut had been in existence for over 20 years when suddenly they changed it and it’s created alot of problems for many folks who’ve used it for a long time to quickly bring up the shutdown menu to either shutdown/hibernate/sleep their systems or reboot them.

To be fair, did they have a good reason to change it? I honestly don’t think that Apple have changed anything in OSX for change’s sake. All the changes have been made for a reason, even if some don’t agree with the reasoning itself.

It makes perfect sense. I suggest you re-read it. I also suggest you learn what speech marks are for.

Anthony Napolitano

Huh? That shortcut has always also been alt F4. That has not changed.

Anonymous

what a bad, incredibly biased article. You don’t have to use ANY of the new features. If you don’t use mission control, full-screen apps, or launchpad, ALL of which are OPTIONAL, it will work just like snow-leopard.

And even using these features requires (O MY GOD) a swipe of your fingers (GASP!!)
It literally couldn’t be any simpler and more intuitive.

Take your head out of your ass.

Anonymous

The reversed scrolling direction is enabled by default which is what 95% of users are going to stick with. This is confusing especially for people who have to use Mac OSX and Windows on a daily basis.

Lupius

They put in reversed scrolling? This is the exact reason why I hated console FPS games all these years!

benson304

Theoretically the new scrolling method makes sense. Imagine trying to move a piece of paper on the table up. You’re going to move your fingers upward, not downward. I’ve gotten used to it fairly quickly.

Anonymous

But we’re not talking about what is “right” or make sense. I’m just making the point that isn’t exactly a natural progression for most people, especially Windows people.

benson304

I think it’s more “natural” than you think honestly.

Anonymous

I’m not sure you mean by that but I’ve been Lion since it was released now and it certainly wasn’t “natural”.

benson304

How long did you use it for before you turned it off?

Anonymous

Dayish, the main issue is that I literally have a Windows machine and my MBP sitting next to each other that I go back and forth from all day long. Now, I’m a developer so I’m certainly not the normal user in that respect. If a Mac was the only thing I had to use I would suck it up and use it but simply put, I can’t.

benson304

I can understand that then. Switching between two computers with different scrolling would make sure you get extremely pissed off quick.

Since I use Mac solely (and a mouse at work) the adaptation was quicker for me – although it was not instantaneous. Thinking about it like I posted before made it click a little more for me.

Andy Candet

I use reverse scrolling on my Windows and Linux machines, there’s nothing Mac-exclusive about it. On Linux you just have to create a one-line file and launch a command, and on Windows you can use AutoHotKey.

When you’ve installed Lion or are setting it up the first time, you must use the “natural” scrolling to scroll down to where the continue button is visible. So if you fail to scroll properly, you’ll end up reading the text, and if you scrolled properly, you’ll be fine. Either way, people will read and watch that particular video.

And if the computer is one BEFORE they get to it?? I went to the Apple store a day or two after the release of Lion to play with it. I was just about to tell one of the Geniuses the computer had a problem when realize that because the scrolling was backwards, I was already at the top of the screen, and I’ve been on Macs for decades.

That is by no means intuitive. I’m not saying the next version won’t work better, but right now, I’m not overly impressed with Lion.

Anonymous

I paid $21.87 for an iPad 2 32-GB and my girlfriend loves her Panasonic

Lumix GF 1 Camera that we got for $ 38.76 there arriving tomorrow by UPS.

I will never pay such expensive retail prices in stores again. Especially

when I also sold a 40 inch LED TV to my boss for $ 657 which only cost me

Natural scrolling can be disabled easily and when you first boot a Lion machine it’s explained along with how to switch it to the classic scrolling direction.

All the other new Lion features are buried and can be used if you want but are otherwise out of the way. I installed the dev GM 3 weeks ago and didn’t touch a single new Lion feature for the first 3 days because I was trying to meet a deadline for work. Outside of the auto-hiding scroll bars I didn’t anything functionally different until I started to explore the new feature set intentionally.

Okay, I am a fanboi (fangirl?), and I find it much less intuitive than previous versions of OSX. Previously on OSX, if I found out about a new feature, my reaction was, “That’s cool!” For a lot of Lion though, my reaction is, “Huh? That’s confusing.”

Macs have always prided themselves on being easy enough that a child (or senior citizen) can figure it out in a few seconds. I don’t Lion is like that.

Christopher Raff

I smell fan boy.

Kevin Zuber

I actually consider this post to be very valid, being a support technician all the mac users who went home and did the update come to me with the same issues which are always the gestures their not as simple as designed to be. Even as a apple zombie you should be able to admit to that.

Could not agree more. I just purchased my first mac and within 1 week I have already mastered gestures. I have completely replaced my magic mouse with my magic trackpad. Love launch pad and mission control and then controlling them with gestures.

It’s been a long time since i used macs, i used Centris 610 and Mac Classic, then for fun i had power pc 8500. I never got the taste for the Mac OS X. Maybe, and i say maybe in some distant future, i will get at least macbook or something. I don’t know, it’s too shiny and white for me.

benson304

The “macbook” has gone the way of the dodo, so unless you’re buying used your out of luck.

in about a month everyone will STFU and say “OMFG Steve Jobs is a GENIUS!!!!”. Then Facebook will change their layout and everyone will be like “OMFG FACEBOOK U SUCK CUZ YOU CHANGE THE NEWZ FEED AGAIN!!! I HATE IT!!! I AMZ SWITCHIN’ TO GOOGLE +!!!!” Then after a week they will say “THE NEWZ FEED IS SO DOPE!!!! SORRY ZUCK!!!!”

PC people learn to adapt to changes, Apple people go into a frenzied panic when change occurs.

This is how I see PC vs Mac.

I can give a man a fish and he eats for a day (MAC)
or I can teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime (PC)

Anonymous

the reason you think that way is because you, as a pc person, are a moron and haven’t yet learned to see the world outside of your little box.

The fact that you think that your OS, the one that was originally built on DOS (ahahahahahaha) is superior to the OS that is built on a UNIX kernel and still gives you FULL access through command line terminals… just makes me think that you are a simple minded moron.

Just keep in mind, if you think using a PC makes you a power user, then you most definitely are NOT a power user.

Raygun

apparently the truth hurts..man you seem butt hurt

Also, your response had zero to do with my response. I was simply pointing out that mac people are…well simpletons who when faced with a choice, clam up and lose all rational on how to operate their computer. PC people are used to this adversity and understand the road to fixing their issues.

Also, I never claimed to be a power user but I do understand basic navigation into some of the depths of the windows architecture and if I dont I know where to get answers. Apple people are used to being spoon fed and don’t possess the understanding…this if of course as a whole. I am sure their are apple fans who know how to navigate the depths of the OS…but based on the issues with OSX lion, I would say they are far and few between.

I’m sorry but you’re displaying epic ignorance here. Go to Photoshop world or a graphic design studio and count the Windows PCs. Trust me, if there’s such a thing as a ‘power user’, it’s us. I’m really not interested in a Mac vs PC debate, it’s so tired it’s unreal.

As for Mac users being spoon fed, this sums up the attitude of so-called power users that have never used a mac for any length of time. People adore their macs for a reason: they take the fuss out of owning a computer without any compromise on its capabilities and that’s what a 2011 computer should do. Windows users will still be in .dll hell in 2025, clicking away UAC confirmations and cleaning up registry entries.

When I look back at my PC-owning life, I just feel total relief that I no longer have to maintain my computer like some old clapped-out truck. The cleverest people in California have made my OS, and that’s why laymen like us don’t have to coax it into life like Windows users do. If you like endlessly tweaking your tired OS, go for it :)

If I need to do something specialist, I load up the terminal and can do almost anything to OSX. Fact remains though, that I never have to! The reason so many people are moaning is because they loved how it was before so much. When MS change something in Windows, people leap for joy because any change is a good change when you’re wading through manure.

The ONLY legitimate cause for complaint with Lion is the lack of Rosetta support, and even that I can understand from Apple, they can’t support 2005 code forever. Every other feature can be set back to be more or less how it was in Snow Leopard. Some people are just moaners. You don’t like the new scrolling, untick ONE tick box…it really is beyond the pale to moan about such a tiny thing.

Jeff Jones

As a 20 year Windows/PC user and a 10 year Mac OSX user I can confirm that the Mac OSX 5, 6 or 7 has more flaws and poorly thought out methods than Windows 7.

As far as exclusive platform users. I know quite a few who consider themselves Mac exclusive and I would definitely not classify them as geniuses in the computing world. Mac exclusive users often have a non-technical mindset to them.

That’s a lazy, insulting stereotype that does not ring true in my experience. Several of the very most technically proficient computer users I know use Macs to make their living.

If you don’t like the platform, that’s your choice, but let’s not perpetuate silly myths for the sake of winning an argument. It does nobody any good.

Vlad Tepes

” Go to Photoshop world or a graphic design studio and count the Windows
PCs. Trust me, if there’s such a thing as a ‘power user’, it’s us.”

Really? Now you’re telling me the designers are power users? I don’t get how you jump to that conclusion. And Photoshop works exactly the same on both win and mac pcs so I really don’t understand why a design firm would limit themselves to macs, unless it was an irrational bias.

Actually, Windows NT was a complete re-write with a multi-threading microkernel (threads didn’t appear in Linux until a while afterwards) with protected mode virtual memory. It had nothing in common with DOS. All subsequent version of Windows were based on the NT kernel. Also, Apple, until they employed the BSD kernel with OS/X, offered OS 9 and MacOS Classic – an archaic cooperative task switcher which was technically inferior to absolutely *everything*. Except DOS. They offered OS 9 until *2002*.

I personally use whatever works (W7 for gaming, Linux for development and infrastructure), but it must be nice to be as clever and well-informed as you clearly are.

Anonymous

If that was true, the Vista adoption would have been significant, but most Vista users went back to XP. The Vista UI changes added made the experience incredibly hard compared to XP. Not to mention the terrible performance/impending upgrade costs.

Isn’t the scrolling is for people who are upgrading from the iPad not Windows?

Anonymous

Just tried Lion. It looks like under Lion Macs are functionally downgraded to big iPads. That might work for the casual user, but not for the serious user and programmer. None of the
serious applications like the compilers, c, c++, gfortran or the commercial compilers seem functional
(without re-installing, recompiling at least). TexLife does not work either. Even the browser Safari has hickups. I am glad I still have my snow-leopard partition. I’ll try next year again.

r o

Yeah installing developer tools was so hard, gee I wish I hadn’t upgraded.

r o

Yeah installing developer tools was so hard, gee I wish I hadn’t upgraded.

The new feature are only their if you need them, Lion works about the same way as Snow Leopard and some of the UI is much better the SN. As a programer Lion is not going to hold me back. Must hiccups will be addressed quickly.

As a long time Mac (Apple) user, I find your comments a little misleading. Yes, the new features are going to take some time to learn. That said, if you like you can still work (almost) the same way as Leopard. Its when you start to play with the new (iSO like) features that things get a little strange. That’s why I recommend that you take your time to get to know them. Your article as I said at the beginning is very misleading. I will still recommend a new Mac over any PC running Win7 – When a get a handle and the new features I let you know. For now you should think about the things you said and let us know when you have had some “real” time to learn the new features and stop writhing about stuff you’re not in titled to.

Anonymous

I have used both Mac’s and Windows for years. Long before many of these so called Apple fans have lived.
I have to agree that with OS X Lion Apple has created a bigger learning curve with it. In fact long time Mac users are having pauses that must say something is wrong with Apple’s thinking. Its not a fluid transition.
I have managed to work around some of my distaste for the new features and reverse their effects. But as you say. Many new to OS X may not have that ability. My own opinion is that mixing IOS with OSX is not as great as Apple may think. Plus, my daughter has a White Macbook that allows Lion to be installed but does not have the gesture ability on the touchpad. So some of the great features don’t even work. That to me is even more confusing. Lion is a worthy upgrade for those who embrace gestures and those with newer Mac’s. But as far as I have seen so far. I think many could skip it, if they are happy with mice and a keyboard.

Every new feature can be used without gesture support. None of what you could do before has been disabled.
The only parts of Lion that have a steeper learning curve are the added features that go beyond what Snow Leopard was capable of. None of the core functionality that is common to Snow Leopard and Lion has changed a great deal. I think people are making far too much of this.

Anonymous

Here is a tutorial for all the people struggling with the “complicated” new OS called Lion:

1. Take your 4 fingers and swipe them across the trackpad left,right, up, and down
2. Notice what it does (goes back and forth between desktop screens/ goes in and out of mission control).

Congratulations! You’ve now mastered the (according to the author) incredibly complex new OS called Lion!

This article is so stupid, sounds like it was written by a newb! Ahh, Lion works just like Leopard does and ONLY when you want to explore beyond basic Leopardness it’s there to be explored with gestures. Small learning curve.

I think Launchpad and MissionControl are awesome. Now, I actually use Spaces being just a three finger swipe. This is innovation! This article is just someone that hates change and does not understand if they don’t like the new features then do not use them.

Many of the new features are very cool and if you are not cool enough to appreciate them, you can disable them. Gestures make life simple which is depicted in a totally different way in this article. The very idea of having to interact with the content and not the OS is extremely innovative and would make users love the intuitiveness of the software.

The new gestures are great – albeit controversial in places (will see how that plays out in a bit more time) but they are just the tip of the iceberg. Some of the most important changes have gone on under the hood – where the average user won’t see them but will certainly benefit from them.In particular the new sandbox model leads to a vastly more secure architecture that should go a long way to keeping your Mac malware-free – which for many is it’s USP. Similarly whole-disk-encryption is not as geeky as it sounds – but can allow even the less technical users to keep their data secure. These things don’t sound quite as sexy – but in the long run I think they will prove to be more of a deciding factor in OSX’s success than the touch gestures.

Anonymous

Somehow I think Apple will be just fine.. The last line was a little lame, when was the last time Microsoft attacked Apple in comparison to the Apple Mac vs. PC ads?

I read your entire article with an open mind and the spirit of some the points you raise is interesting, but I have to take issue with much of the content itself.

Firstly, Spaces has been revolutionised by Mission Control. What isn’t obvious is that you can still create new Spaces to use as you did in Snow Leopard by moving you mouse pointer to the upper right and clicking on the + icon that appears. You can then use Spaces how you always have, but with FAR better navigation by way of the swipe gesture. This is hidden from users like our parents but is there for the power users like us. It’s a vast improvement once you know you can do that. You can also have a different desktop image to make these spaces easier to distinguish from one another.

‘Lion’s forced complexity’ is a completely unfair statement(ish). Every big change in Lion can be disabled easily if the user so wishes; natural scrolling, auto spelling correction, Dashboard as a space. Incidentally, disabling Dashboard as a Space is one change I would make for your parents. It removes the elasticity of the desktop and makes it feel more ‘solid’. If there are no spaces other than the desktop, the elastic bounce doesn’t occur. I prefer this personally and might confuse your parents less. (I’m sure they’re brighter than you make out you know!)

Making an app full-screen isn’t particularly easily done by accident. If your parents do it, you tell them to hit escape. I’m not sure how long that takes to explain over the phone… ;) What you don’t give Apple credit for is that Full Screen is GREAT! Your parents might well absolutely love being able to surf the net full screen. Glass half full.

All in all I think your article is completely over the top. No major new release of an OS is going to feel familiar after a couple of days. It takes time to adapt to major enhancements, and enhancements is what I feel they are. One of the things that I admire about Apple is their refusal to spoon feed people what they’ve always had and bank the profits. They genuinely want to innovate and improve the state of the art and they aren’t scared of a backlash when they have to occasionally force people to move onto the next stage in the computer’s evolution. We’ll never get to LCARS and Majel Barrett reading my mail if we don’t keep innovating, and that means changes from time to time.

I would suggest that you set your parents up on iChat, set iChat to automatically start at boot up so they don’t need to do anything and then just invite them to share their screen with you when they next call. You can disabled natural scrolling (if you must, I’m reserving judgement on that one myself but I think it might well prove to be a logical change in time) and Dashboard as a space and autocorrect if you want all without them having to be confused. That’s assuming that they would be confused in the first place. You can also assist them in a fraction of the time with any of those ‘parent’ problems that they seem to find in the most benign of situations!

There’s the fact that Spaces has been totally gimped by Mission Control. You can’t bring up all windows under Expose anymore. If you have multiple windows of the same app open, they’re all clustered together and hard to click on.

There are multiple “steps back” like this in Lion. The monochromatic icons. The simplistic interface of Mail and iCal.

If you swipe down instead of up you get the same functionality of Snow Leopard. The real power of Exposé remains, in my opinion.

I don’t think Apple has iOS-fied the desktop. I think Apple know OSX is a different beast to iOS. Taking little bits of chrome and functionality from iOS that have proven popular does make sense.

In the end, if you don’t like it it’s not forced on you. We’re a year on now and I firmly believe Lion was a real jump forwards.

Anonymous

Thats the problem though. Having sat down in my old job in IT support with tonnes of newbies, newbies are TERRIFIED of going into settings for fear it will break things (And in windows, thats even quite likely) These people will never find the option to turn it off, they’ll just be confused shitless by it. Its bad useability design from a company that used to be the kings of useability.

I hear what you’re saying and I agree change scares the crap out of people, as do settings panels. That’s always going to be a risk when you introduce new features but you can’t not improve something because it might scare a few people.

The new features are well worth ruffling some features for. I don’t think they are such huge changes that people need to worry about hoards of users being bamboozled. They’ll adapt in hours.

shayneo

Right, but settings panel vs no settings is a false dichotomy. There are other ways to poll a users preferences.

If it can be disabled and most users are confused by the features, shouldn’t they come disabled so that the power users can enable them. Your point that normal users should disable features itself is counterintutive, I’d say very Windows like.
The funniest line in your reply is “I read your entire article with an open mind” LMAO…. I think you have no idea what an open mind is…

Apple know that if you want to move forward, you have to urge, push people in the right direction. That’s not condescending, it’s just the way it is. Most companies are either unwilling or unable to do that. That’s why most laptops still have 25 year old VGA ports on their laptops, DVD drives most users will never use etc.

I didn’t suggest normal users should disable new features, I pointed out that if the new features really are truly mind-blowing for them (which I also implied was probably not the case, despite the author’s fears), then turning some of them off was a choice they could make.

I’ll show you more respect than you showed me by leaving out the insult at the end. They call it ‘class’.

S H

The claim the every major new feature can be disabled is BS. Take the new scrolling “elasticity” that creates a “rubber band” effect when scrolling to the end of a window. It looks sweet on the iPhone but when working with thousands of images in Lightroom it’s costing me a great deal of time as I scroll from the top to the bottom and back of my tool palette for nearly every image. Waiting for my buttons to snap back to where they should have been in the first place is REALLY REALLY bad. There is no way to disable this. Why? It should be a simple System Preferences toggle.

That’s a niche case. Perhaps Adobe will fix that as that elasticity is not in Aperture. I do think you’re exaggerating just how rubbery the effect is.

Gary Keene

When I scroll ( PC ) down to the bottom of the page, I imagine that I’m dragging a viewing window down to the bottom of the page. Apparently Apple thinks it’s more “natural” to imagine that the viewing window is fixed in place, and you have to move the page up and down inside the viewing window to see the top or bottom. Either way – movable window or movable page can be argued as “natural,” but one is not better than the other, it’s just a trick of the mind. Is Apple claiming that this is a feature that makes them better than PC? I call BS.

On the PC or Mac (prior to Lion) the scroll wheel on a mouse was as if you were pulling on the scroll bar. Or you could actually click on the scroll bar and pull it toward the bottom of the window.

With OSX.7 (Lion) they have depreciated the scroll bar as much as possible and you are essentially pushing the content or canvas around.

I’ve noticed that the method it is more intuitive using one of the touch pad devices rather than the mouse. Hopefully what they will eventually fine tune the feature and automatically let mice do the original scroll direction while any multi-touch surface, including multi-touch screens on laptops, will use the reversed method (or push method).

Listening to these arguments is complicated. Apple should have sent out a video first stating that if you like Snow Leopard as is then don’t upgrade, because then you will probably end up disabling all the features in the new OS that make it worth the upgrade.

While I think some of Lion’s changes are a bit rough around the edges (default behavior on some gestures, especially with the trackpad) or completely unneeded (the slight shrinking of the window stoplight controls, which make it harder to use windows), overall the changes aren’t bad at all.

And, I’m typing as a new Mac user, having only owned my shiny 27″ refurb for about 3 months or less. What’s even “worse”, if you call it that, is that I just bought a magic trackpad to try out.

Once I acclimated to the swipes needed for controlling Lion, things are going pretty smoothly – mostly. There are some bugs to be worked out – like not being able to 4-swipe UP for Mission Control unless you have Expose’s 4-swipe down also enabled – but overall the changes are great, especially for the applications.

And your complaint about 1-finger swiping in Mission Control is a bit weird – I didn’t try to swipe with one finger when I tried it, because I realize I have a mouse pointer there and 1 finger is always for movement, not swiping.

So far, I’ve run into Lightroom 3 not playing consistently with swipe actions, but the application was out before Lion, so that’s to be expected.

The only thing I would change would be allowing window closures directly from Mission Control (WHY Apple, WHY remove this!? It’s not like newbies would have stumbled upon it anyway!), and I really hate not having the option for click-lock with single tapping, though I’ve changed to 3-finger movements and it’s about the same. Oh, and the window stoplight controls – that was actually a regression

Oh, and natural movements? Completely absurd if you use a mouse (I argued against them over at Ars), but great if you use a trackpad.

In general, I have found OS X to be so simple as to be maddeningly difficult at times. As a long-time Windows user, I need to think more intuitively when I use a Mac, if that makes sense. The changes in Lion are going in the right direction, toward a unified OS that transcends the device. The only folks complaining are the rigid elitist users that are offended that they must make a couple preference setting changes. Well, those settigns are there for you staunch legacy users.

Anonymous

So, how many Mac users will switch back to the more powerful and capable, not to mention user friendly, Windows 7 now? :)

Heh, this is so amusing. I was jerked awake when I scanned the article so I decided to finish it. Sounds like a good idea for an essay due tomorrow LOL Shaw Capital Management Online

Anonymous

Just wait until they flip the switch that forces people to install all their software from the Mac App Store, just like is required on the iOS devices. Don’t think that’s coming? Think again. Apple is moving in a direction of full control, a position they love and profit from handsomely. I’ve been a lover of Apple products for years, but the direction they’re moving is disappointing. Why would I spend my hard-earned money to have a device that is controlled by Apple? It’s like paying rent and never owning your equipment.

Нow many Mac users will switch back to the more powerful and capable, not to mention user friendly, Windows 7 now?

Willy Gravelle

When I got the DP of lion a month ago, I hated the reverse scrolling. However, instead of changing it, I decided to stick with it. Now I love it.

It just feels natural on the trackpad. However, I do not like it at all on a mouse.

These “advanced” features are actually optional (you can use Lion the same way you can use Snow Leopard), but they have made working on a computer fun and efficient.

Anonymous

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Anonymous

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Anonymous

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Anonymous

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Anonymous

A few months ago, before Lion launched, I installed Scroll Reverser to see if the direction switch would be a problem. Well, it worked. It took me all of an hour to get used to scrolling with the page rather than against it. 25 years of “muscle memory” gone in an hour. The direction my finger go, the page goes. Now it’s normal.

Counterintuitive? Give me a break! You can’t imagine the number of Windows laptop users I see struggling with clicking the scroll button to move up and down a page. That’s counterintuitive. In real life, when you want to move a page up, you move the page up, not down. Why have computers been different for so many years? Why did it take so long to stop moving a view portal instead of moving the content/page?

I’ve been thinking of Lion as Apple’s retort to Windows Vista. They added a bunch of functionality while destroying the familiarity of the previous OS. And while I think that the gestures need more flexibility (try switching from Trackpad to Magic Mouse), I personally ran into a different problem: Upgrading vs New Install.

That includes hardware. I have an early model MacBook Pro that I love. Despite it’s zippy 2.5GHz Core 2 Duo with 4GB of RAM, it will feels a bit sluggish in Lion. Then I purchased a new MacBook Pro last week. No upgrade since it’s already installed with Lion (I miss the physical media), but that’s when I discovered even newer features. AirDrop was a big one. I was excited to use it, until I discovered that my older MBP can’t utilize this feature.

I never really used Spaces until Lion. Something about the old way that I couldn’t get into, but the gestures actually *help* me use spaces better. I only recently stumbled upon the full screen space, which was a great find for me. I really disliked having to exit full screen to work between apps.

I think that Apple certainly has good intentions with 10.7 and making it resemble iOS. As an educator, the iPad is an incredibly easy tool to teach children and adults of all ages. It’s fairly intuitive. I think that if Apple can better align the gestures between devices, then it would be a home run.

Rush Simonson

This is a classic example of not leaving good enough alone! The Mac interface could certainly use some tweeking, but companies feel compelled to make these huge changes to justify the charge for the new system. You are right about the parents. You just get them trained and now BOOM!

I will not upgrade my machines (7) or my parents (1) until absolutely forced to. Isn’t Apple happy with their huge sales of hardware and market dominance? They need to be careful not to screw up what got them to the dance and that was a beautiful user experience. Let’s hope LION is not the MobileMe of OS’s!

Generally speaking I consider myself an “expert” user. I write software for a living and work in all of the major desktop operating systems from time to time. I have a laptop running OS X, Win7 and Ubuntu and I have a desktop running Win7 and Fedora. I’m not actually convinced that Novice users coming from a windows world are going to have a “bad” experience with Lion. For the most part everything is discoverable and I disagree with the author, it is actually fairly difficult to get “stuck” in full screen mode (Command-Tab still switches, mousing to the top reveals a menu etc).

The real problem is for more advanced users who don’t “love” the changes that were made in Lion. For me specifically I was able to ignore launchpad and tweak the configuration for mission control….but the one major sticking point for me were all (yes there was more than one) of changes to scrolling:

1. “Natural Scrolling” – Thankfully this could be disabled. Years of muscle memory were impossible for me to overcome…making it highly “unnatural”. This is also completely inconsistent depending on whether you are using a trackpad or a mouse.

2. “Hidden Scroll Bars” – This didn’t bother me at first, but unfortunately not all applications support it (I’m looking at you Firefox) so you end up in this state of UI inconsistency that forced me to disable it.

3. “Scrolling Inertia” – This was actually introduced as an option in Snow Leopard. However, unlike Snow Leopard this one seems is a sort of zombie setting that kept coming back EVERY TIME I reboot my computer forcing me to enable/disable it to get the setting back. When you run multiple operating systems rebooting is going to be a far more common occurrence so I know this bothers me more than other people, but still…this seems like a pretty big oversight on Apple’s part…lost settings on reboot doesn’t exactly mesh well with their “everything is restored on restart even application state”

4. “Elastic Scrolling” – This one is hands down my biggest pet peeve for a number reasons. First, it simply can’t be disabled and feels EXTREMELY unnatural when I can scroll my multi-column finder view in all directions past the actual interface. Second, it is inconsistently implemented…if you use a regular mouse to scroll you will never see this behavior, but using a trackpad all of a sudden I can scroll beyond the boundaries just like in iOS. For me this should either be configurable or it should be disabled when Natural Scrolling is disabled (that’s how it works with a mouse). Finally, the “point” of elastic scrolling in iOS is to provide a visual cue when you are

Lion feels like Apple wanting to “test” a version of OS X that they could eventually put on an iPad. Unfortunately, rather than releasing a touchscreen device they instead chose trackpads as the test bed for touchscreen emulation….I simply couldn’t stomach being their guinea pig. Maybe I’m just turning into a grumpy old man, but please don’t mess
with my scrolling, or if you do at least allow me to get back to the
“original” behavior.

Generally speaking I consider myself an “expert” user. I write software for a living and work in all of the major desktop operating systems from time to time. I have a laptop running OS X, Win7 and Ubuntu and I have a desktop running Win7 and Fedora. I’m not actually convinced that Novice users coming from a windows world are going to have a “bad” experience with Lion. For the most part everything is discoverable and I disagree with the author, it is actually fairly difficult to get “stuck” in full screen mode (Command-Tab still switches, mousing to the top reveals a menu etc).

The real problem is for more advanced users who don’t “love” the changes that were made in Lion. For me specifically I was able to ignore launchpad and tweak the configuration for mission control….but the one major sticking point for me were all (yes there was more than one) of changes to scrolling:

1. “Natural Scrolling” – Thankfully this could be disabled. Years of muscle memory were impossible for me to overcome…making it highly “unnatural”. This is also completely inconsistent depending on whether you are using a trackpad or a mouse.

2. “Hidden Scroll Bars” – This didn’t bother me at first, but unfortunately not all applications support it (I’m looking at you Firefox) so you end up in this state of UI inconsistency that forced me to disable it.

3. “Scrolling Inertia” – This was actually introduced as an option in Snow Leopard. However, unlike Snow Leopard this one seems is a sort of zombie setting that kept coming back EVERY TIME I reboot my computer forcing me to enable/disable it to get the setting back. When you run multiple operating systems rebooting is going to be a far more common occurrence so I know this bothers me more than other people, but still…this seems like a pretty big oversight on Apple’s part…lost settings on reboot doesn’t exactly mesh well with their “everything is restored on restart even application state”

4. “Elastic Scrolling” – This one is hands down my biggest pet peeve for a number reasons. First, it simply can’t be disabled and feels EXTREMELY unnatural when I can scroll my multi-column finder view in all directions past the actual interface. Second, it is inconsistently implemented…if you use a regular mouse to scroll you will never see this behavior, but using a trackpad all of a sudden I can scroll beyond the boundaries just like in iOS. For me this should either be configurable or it should be disabled when Natural Scrolling is disabled (that’s how it works with a mouse). Finally, the “point” of elastic scrolling in iOS is to provide a visual cue when you are

Lion feels like Apple wanting to “test” a version of OS X that they could eventually put on an iPad. Unfortunately, rather than releasing a touchscreen device they instead chose trackpads as the test bed for touchscreen emulation….I simply couldn’t stomach being their guinea pig. Maybe I’m just turning into a grumpy old man, but please don’t mess
with my scrolling, or if you do at least allow me to get back to the
“original” behavior.

Edward Iskra

All this talk of “reverse” scrolling and “natural” scrolling reveals how it’s NOT so intuitive or obvious… or natural.

Having spent serious time on UI work, I think the answer is based on this:

– It is natural for the page in the frame to move the same way as the finger moves if your finger is on the page – as on a tablet or phone or other touch-display.

– But if your fingers NOT on the page, but on the frame, pulling the frame down should naturally move the view down the page.

The trackpad is neither on the page nor the frame, it’s on the base, which makes it a little ambiguous. I feel the frame analogy is still more natural, but it’s easy to put yourself in the mindset that the touchpad is an extension of the page, not a controller of the frame. Still, it is NOT completely natural – it requires you to put yourself in a particular mindset. Apple clearly wants to unify the gesture -and mindset – between touch and non-touch displays, and it’s easier to get people to use their laptop like their phone than their phone like their laptop.

Edward Iskra

All this talk of “reverse” scrolling and “natural” scrolling reveals how it’s NOT so intuitive or obvious… or natural.

Having spent serious time on UI work, I think the answer is based on this:

– It is natural for the page in the frame to move the same way as the finger moves if your finger is on the page – as on a tablet or phone or other touch-display.

– But if your fingers NOT on the page, but on the frame, pulling the frame down should naturally move the view down the page.

The trackpad is neither on the page nor the frame, it’s on the base, which makes it a little ambiguous. I feel the frame analogy is still more natural, but it’s easy to put yourself in the mindset that the touchpad is an extension of the page, not a controller of the frame. Still, it is NOT completely natural – it requires you to put yourself in a particular mindset. Apple seems to want to unify the gesture – and mindset – between touch and non-touch displays, and it’s easier to get people to use their laptop like their phone than their phone like their laptop.

If I would read this article a couple of days ago, I would totally agree. Especially the natural scrolling was totally confusing. But even to turn it off, was not very helpful, as vertical browsing made sense [due to the learned gestures] how it was, however horizontal scrolling is even more confusing if it is inverse.

Now few days after, most is pretty cool! I hardly use Launchpad – my way is over spotlight – but sometimes it is need to see, what application I have. The scrolling almost works totally without any thought. It is almost easier as it was before. Love also the full screen apps with swiping. Great is mission control for me. But even better is to move things with 3 fingers [this makes really sense] or the look up feature.

Well – every computer and every operating system has a learning curve, but the learning with Lion works quite naturally. It is not learning with your head, but simply by get used to it. This might frustrate some in the first days [and some even longer] but for most not tech-savvy people it might be even faster and easier.

In almost all major releases not only of MacOsX but also of Windows people were confused and didn’t like it – thought it got more complicated. I still know the change from MacOs9 to MacOsX – people stated, that the old system was much easier, much more user-friendly etc.
But looking now back, we all know that it was the right step – Lion will further improve and get easier, that I am sure off.
Now scroll a bit more, and get used to it – later on you will love it and won’t want to get back!

Anonymous

Its simple- don’t upgrade to Lion. It cost me over $2000.00 in other sowtware upgrades, tech time as I have to hire it out and 2 days lost business.
A 29.00 dollar program that as far as I can see does Icloud (what Mobile me was supposed to do) and I’m not sure whatever benefit.
Next time I need equipment I’m switching the company back to windows.

Anonymous

Just bought a new MBP with Lion pre-installed. I can see it being hugely confusing for the inexperienced. This is not my first Mac, having used an ancient one with Tiger and (briefly) a somewhat newer one with Snow Leopard.

I quite like Lion, and it adds some truly necessary GUI features, like folder merge. The default behavior of Snow Leopard to simply replace a destination folder was asinine. OSX is still missing a snap-to feature like Windows 7 to make it “the complete package” in my book, but it ain’t bad. I find I’m easily able to navigate and find what I’m looking for, and the new gestures are pretty useful once you get accustomed to them.

Generally, though, I don’t recommend anyone get a computer these days unless it is for hardcore gaming or business/productivity. For everyone else, a nice peppy iPad 2 or Android tablet will get the job done for less.

Anonymous

I absolutely love Lion. If Lion had not turned my $2000 computer into an overgrown iPad, I would never have tried and subsequently moved to Windows 7. After many years of being a Mac devotee, I went to Windows. I’m not a consumer user. I need to use my computer, as a tool. While Apple making its products more accessible to non-computer users is a good thing for content sellers, it has a very different effect on me. I want my computer to work for me, to do things my way. I get very pissed off when a computer tries to control the way I want to do things.

I’m not simple-minded enough, that I must have a full-screen app so I don’t get distracted. I actually close applications when I finish with them, I don’t want my computer restarting them when I turn it on. When I finish a document, I close it, I don’t want the last document I worked on to open again when I open a program. All these and many more of the so called improvements can be turned off, some after using some third party app to kill them. What’s the point though? Why keep fighting with Apple for control of my computer? If they don’t value me enough to make a Pro version of Lion, let them sell their stuff to consumer users. It’s what they want anyway. They have become an appliance maker.

Now Microsoft is about to make all the same mistakes, out of iPad envy I suppose. So if they don’t discover Windows 8 is another Vista, then I suppose I’ll move to Linux. Even Linux distros are going for the no-user-control, tablet feel though. But at least you can roll your own if you don’t like it.

No, Lion is not really harder to use. It’s just not meant to be used as a computer, it was designed to sell and view pre-packaged content. Lion is Apple’s first step in moving their customers to appliance devices.

Anonymous

New Apple user here, came to this article by typing “beginners guide to osx lion” into Firefox on my new MBP. I’m 28, work in information services, and have always been a Windows guy. I can (and have always) build my own computers. I can edit registries and use command line in Windows, and I wanted a new challenge. Received an iPad for Christmas, and after initially asking it be returned – I didn’t even want to open it – I grew to like it. Needed a new computer, and decided my first computer purchase for myself would be a MBP.

To say I’ve been confused would be an understatement. I’m slowly learning, and enjoy the challenge of it. But I’m somewhat frustrated – I’ve used Macs in the past – fairly new ones – and always found it to be an intuitive experience. Plenty of time on my folks Macbook Air helping them figure out how to use it, and that was part of what attracted me to this machine. That, and the integration with the iPad. Which I now realize was a fallacy since a Win7 machine can just as easily integrate.

Anyway, using that Macbook Air was much easier than I’m finding this experience. I’m having a hard time keeping things straight: what’s Finder vs Spotlight, Launchpad vs Mission Control. Why does a four finger swipe up do the same thing as a three finger swipe up? Why can’t I get it setup like my mom’s machine, which allows you to jump from top to bottom in web pages with three finger swipes?

My first machine came with a defect in the screen, which took me about a week to notice. The Apple store, to their credit, did a good job switching them out for me. But I was left to reinstall everything from scratch and start over, even after turning an old external hard drive into a “Time Machine”. No settings would transfer, although I can access all the information after starting over on the new machine.

I’m wondering what the huge appeal to this thing was. Why do people love Apple so much? I’ve never had issues using Windows. Although I’m still within my window to return the machine, since it’s been swapped at the Apple store with another unit, I highly doubt Best Buy would take it back. I don’t get it.

If anyone has tips on how to do some advanced things with this supposedly advanced machine, I’d love to hear them. From what I’ve learned from the rep at the Apple store, there isn’t even a BIOS for my to dive into the do something as simple as change the boot path (to eliminate the annoying noise from the DVD drive). I upgraded myself to 8GB of RAM (for $37 on NewEgg, instead of the $400 Apple wanted), so I have plenty of power to use this thing. I’ll upgrade the HDD in a few months when prices come back down. In the interim, I really want to learn to use this machine.

Let me put it this way, I found this post by the search phrase “mac no longer user friendly.” I took the plunge this year and bought an ipad, new iphone and (just last week) a macbook air. The first two sold me on buying the third due to their syncing ability and ease of use. The Macbook OS X has not been anything but an exercise in frustration. For example, I understand that ical has the ability to have separate calendars, can I not just view one calendar without going up into the menu and having to deselect all the other calendars! Can’t they just list them in a sidebar and allow me to click the one I want. To be honest, I wasn’t real pleased with the service at the Apple store either, these folks are about as deep as a mud puddle in their skill level.

A word on “natural scrolling”: In fact, scrolling was reversed all the time since mouse wheels came into use and Apple finally fixed it.
Explanation:
– In the time before GUI, one scrolled by moving the cursor. When the cursor went down, the content went up. So far, so good.
– Later one scrolled by moving the scrollbar. When the scrollbar went down, the content went up. So far, so good.
– Then, mouse wheels appeared. You no longer moved a text cursor or scrollbar, but hovered the mouse cursor over the content so you thought to move the content. But when moving the wheel up, the content went down! In fact, you still move the scrollbar, what is rather non-intuitive for people used to move physical things, not proxies like scrollbars.
– In Lion, the scrollbar isn’t visible by default. So scrollable content is handled as it is on a smartphone. No one would expect to scroll in the opposite direction of the finger movement on a smartphone. On the Mac one uses the Mighty Mouse or a touchpad – both behaves like a touchscreen. It really IS intuitive.

I made a test with some mac-hating, windows-using colleagues: I sat them at an iMac with Safari and a Mighty Mouse with “natural scrolling” _disabled_. After scrolling around up and down and left and right for some seconds, everyone of them said “Wait! You have reversed the vertical scrolling, didn’t you? It’s different from the horizontal scrolling!”. No, in fact they scrolled just like they did on their Windows boxes.

BTW: I myself am using a Mac with “natural scrolling” and a Windows box with default scrolling behaviour. No problem at all. I tried to use “old” scrolling with the Mighty Mouse and it felt strange. I tried to use “natural scrolling” on the Windows box with a normal mouse wheel and it felt strange. The I tried “natural scrolling” on the Windows box with a touchpad and – believe me – it felt right!

Anonymous

Are you serious.? Swiping with one finger in launchpad? What will you move your cursor with then? Two fingers? Yeah, that’s intuitive… And the reverse scrolling, it felt super natural to me. I have been using Windows laptops all my life, but I bought a MacBook Pro couple months ago. I got used to the “reverse” scrolling after 3 scrolls. Note the “, because it actually is not reversed at all, as someone mentioned already, try moving a piece of paper on your desk…

Steen Brage-Andersen

Funny article for me because I find that OS X is anything but easy to use… Ubuntu Linux is easy, Red Hat is easy, Windows is .easy even Windows 8, and in general I find computers easy.. but OS X makes no sense to me for some reason.

All of this talk about the scrolling being reversed is identical to the talk about panning being reversed on 3rd-person shooter games (think uncharted). It all depends on where you put your focus on; are you moving the head around, or are you moving some abstract concept of a cross-hair? Similarly, are you moving a page up and down with your fingers or are you moving some abstract concept of a scrollbar? I think Apple is choosing to remove abstract concepts.

I’ve only had my new iMac for a few weeks after coming from a Windows environment I use at work as an IT network engineer. This article is spot-on accurate. I am pulling my hair out and regretting my purchasing decision. I don’t want to spend half of my Saturday afternoon figuring out how to move a file from my documents folder to my son’s documents folder, or a half hour figuring out how to do a print screen or right-click for menu options, and I am fed-up already with not knowing how to close some windows or wondering where my window went to. Yes there are tutorials but ‘user-friendly’ implies you can figure most simple things out on your own and tutorials take a lot of time. They should apply to advanced features and options only, not to a simple things like printscreen. And where the h e l l is my backspace key? The frustration level is utterly inexcusable for Apple who should have included a warning with it’s system that Windows users will have no clue how to use this machine out of the box.

chitown

As a guy who started using Macs at work along with PCs, I gotta say: Macs are not easier. They seem arbitrary as hell. And some simple functionality, like minimizing all apps to show the desktop, can’t even be achieved without futzing with settings. I have to create a key binding just to view desktop? What?! I have to go to terminal and enter a long instruction at the command line just to see hidden files? WHAT?!

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